Our Sporting Quotes of the Year Awards.
If the past year’s sporting fixtures failed to grab you, there was always the post-match analysis.
Before consigning 2017 to the database of history, herewith our Sporting Quotes of the Year Awards. Turning a Negative into a Positive: Kiwis coach David Kidwell appeared to have nailed this one by describing New Zealand’s loss to Tonga in Rugby League World Cup pool play as “a blessing in disguise”. However, after Fiji eliminated the Kiwis, his captain, Adam Blair, reminded us of the genius of simplicity with his barefaced denial that the negative – being knocked out of the tournament you are co-hosting by a rank underdog – was a negative. The shock quarter-final defeat was “not a negative”, said Blair. On the contrary, it was “a great game to watch”.
Kidwell had the consolation of securing the Most Specious Red Herring award by suggesting the Kiwis’ cause wasn’t helped by New Zealanders’ lukewarm support and subsequently insisting that only people who actually attended the Wellington quarter-final had the right to criticise the team: “We just need to start loving our team. If [the public] had come out and supported us on the field, they have every right to feel like they have the right to point the finger at us.”
That Kiwis-Fiji game also produced the winner in the All Credit to the Big Man Upstairs award, which recognises the tendency among some sportspeople to assume the Almighty cares about the outcome of sporting contests: “It’s not talent that got the win,” said Fiji’s Jarryd Hayne. “It’s not ability. It’s our belief in God. It’s as simple as that.”
English as a Second Language was a hotly contested category, with Sky Sports’ cricket commentary team making its usual strong showing. Veteran Ian Smith showed he’s still got it with “Southee took a great reactionary catch”, and Mark
Richardson impressed with “It could be a long afternoon for the West Indies if they can’t make headroads into the New Zealand batting line-up”. West Indian guest commentator Ian Bishop made his presence felt with “This is a departure from what is usually the norm”, and across the Tasman, another old dog in Ian Chappell gave us “England have struggled to maintain persistency”.
But the award goes to All Blacks captain Kieran Read for “If you’re looking at consistency on the field, we’ve seen patches”.
The A Little Self-Awareness is a Dangerous Thing award goes to England all-rounder Ben Stokes, who missed the Ashes series after being arrested for his part in a brawl outside a Bristol nightclub. This week, he was charged with affray. As the English authorities tried to find a way to “rehabilitate [Stokes] on the field” – a noteworthy offering from England Cricket boss Tom Harrison – a reporter unearthed this Stokes quote: “I’d never have a competition with anyone on an intellectual basis, but I am streetwise.”
“It’s not talent that got the win. It’s not ability. It’s our belief in God. It’s as simple as that.”
Last year, we introduced the Orwell award, named after George Orwell, who wrote “serious sport has nothing to do with fair play: it is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all the rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence”. If we were awarding the Orwell, US President Donald Trump would be a shoo-in for this snarl at athletes “taking the knee” during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police brutality towards minorities: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, he’s fired.’”
But in the spirit of turning a negative into a positive, we’re awarding an Anti-Orwell to Teresa Kaepernick, the (white) adoptive mother of Colin Kaepernick, the instigator of the protests, for her riposte: “Guess that makes me a proud bitch.”